


A Master Post for the SPN AU Fanfic Serial "The Song Remains the Same"

by fanspired



Series: The Song Remains the Same [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Case Fic, Drama & Romance, Epic Romance, Explicit Sexual Content, Horror, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Mystery, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Thriller
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-01-12 22:53:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1203496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanspired/pseuds/fanspired
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John never married Mary, Dean never became a hunter, Sam never had a father. While Dean grows up in a typical loving family, Sam is raised as a guerilla hunter cut off from normal society. They are thrown together for the first time when the yellow-eyed demon attacks Dean's family. Dean abandons his life as a college student and musician and takes to the road with Sam. Now they are fighting side by side, searching for the demon that killed their mothers and trying to save John.</p><p>This is an episodic AU serial that mimics the formula and style of the original Superntatural show, but with an ongoing slash romance subplot. Each episode has a self-contained adventure plot and can be read as a stand alone story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trailer for the Pilot episode

**Author's Note:**

> This is a master post for the SPN AU Fanfic Serial "The Song Remains the Same". The first chapter contains a mock 'trailer' for the pilot episode "I Can Never Go Home". Subsequent chapters contain previews, summaries and links for each posted story.

 

 

 

 

The Demon has targeted the Winchester family.

 

_Don’t look up._

It falls to Sam Campbell to protect and prepare John's music student son

 

_“Dean, you’re not the pampered,_

_soft-bellied college wimp I took you for.”_

There’s just one problem.

 

_There was no room for sentiment in hunting,_

_no place for attachment, and no excuse for_

_allowing himself to be dominated by a downstairs-_

_brained, testosterone fueled obsession with the_

_guy whose safety was his responsibility._

 

When a couple disappear on a lonely Californian road it provides an opportunity to initiate Dean into the dark mysteries of the Supernatural.

_The eyes were the worst: dark and sunken,_

_with milky irises leeched of color, they were_

_devoid of humanity - hollow and empty_

_yet, paradoxically, filled with malice._

 

_As he made a frantic grab for the rope it_

_dropped right along with him. It felt like he was_

_falling through his own insides and all he could_

_think was what the fuck’s happened  to Sam?!_

**The Song Remains the Same**

John never married Mary, Dean never became a hunter, Sam never had a father.

Sam and Dean never met until now, but they still wind up fighting side by side -

saving people, hunting things.

_“It’s a deal then. I’ll provide the_

_hot wheels and the cool aliases and_

_you teach me everything you know.”_

**Go back to the beginning . . . and take a different road.**

 

  
 


	2. Pilot epsisode - "I Can Never Go Home (Part 1): Visions and Revisions"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Attempting to escape from his violent past and the demands of his hunter family, Sam Campbell is struggling to make a life for himself in a new town when a death vision of his employer’s wife and son, under horribly familiar circumstances, draws him back into old ways and the hunt for his mother’s killer. Can Sam prevent the Winchesters and their college student son from becoming the demon's next victims?

Go back to the beginning . . . and take a different road.

The house was unexceptional. It could have been one of a million homes in America's heartland, and there was absolutely nothing about its features that made them memorable. Once viewed, its details would slip from the mind as easily as the remnants of a fading dream. The young man who was ascending the stairs clutching a sandwich was another matter. Tall, lean-muscled, with a mop of carefully blow-waved ash-brown hair and a manner of studied ease, he could have been a male model. But it was only when you studied his face close up that you appreciated how extraordinarily beautiful he was. His boyish features had an almost feminine sensuality; his large liquid-bright eyes sparkled with iridescent green-hazel hues and were framed by a thick fringe of astonishingly long lashes, and his mouth . . . his mouth . . . his full, silk-soft, sensuous lips had a compelling fascination – they made you want to touch, want to kiss, to taste . . .

He was raising the sandwich to his mouth as he reached a bedroom door. Pausing before opening it he glanced down the hall to the room at the end of the passage where light streamed through a partially open door.

"Night, Mom!" he called.

He took a bite of his sandwich and turned the handle of his own door, then paused again. "Mom?" he called again through half chewed bread. Some instinct, some sense of unease, drew him down the passage toward the open door.

"Mom?" he repeated, a little louder, a little more insistently.

The room appeared empty when he entered it and a puzzled frown settled on his face. Then something bright red splashed on his forehead.

_No._

He wiped the drip from his brow and stared for a moment at the blood red stain on his fingers.

_Don't look up._

His bright eyes flicked to the ceiling. There was a moment of dull incomprehension before they widened with horror and he uttered a strangled scream. "Mom!"

There was the briefest glimpse of the blood-soaked woman pinned to the ceiling before a wash of yellow flames blazed from the centre, engulfing her.

_NO!_

Yellow light enflamed the green in his frozen, stricken eyes before the room exploded around him and he was swallowed by the mass of greedy fire.

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1182228/chapters/2411447)

 

_**A/N: I'd like to**_ ** _express my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented_ ** [ **__ ** ](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/profile) [ **_semarinan_ ** ](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/) **_for creating the stunning gifs for the pilot. This episode is also available in Russian translation. See episode for details._ **


	3. Pilot episode - "I Can Never Go Home (Part 2): The Never Ending Road"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Demon attacks the Winchester family, Sam must protect and prepare John's shell-shocked son, Dean - a task that is complicated by Sam's growing attraction for the irritating but charismatic music student. When a couple disappear on a lonely Californian road it provides an opportunity to initiate Dean into the dark mysteries of the Supernatural.

**_Castor's Passage, California_ **  
  
The silence in the car was tense and chilled. Neither of them had spoken for several minutes. There were tears standing in the woman's eyes and at length she turned to her husband a face that was at once stony and angry, yet pleading.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she demanded.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he sighed. "I've told you I'm sorry."

"Sorry isn't enough!"

"I can't keep having this conversation! I told you, she didn't mean anything to me."

"Well, while it was going on _I_ didn't mean anything to you, did I?"

When he answered her with more silence she turned her face toward the passenger window and stared at her own trembling lips reflected in the darkness beyond the glass. Slowly and mechanically her gaze gravitated toward the front of the car where the broken white lines disappeared under the far edge of the hood. Soon she was mesmerized by the repetitive, unchanging rhythm. She began to trace the lines back to where they stretched into the distance, into the unkown, unforgiving and inescapable future. Anxiety and fear began to constrict her chest as she stared at that distant point. She was suddenly possessed by the conviction that the road had no end, that she was being driven inexorably into the darkness of the eternal abyss. Even as the thought took shape she exhaled a breath that spilled from her lips in a frosted cloud.

Her husband spoke again and, at first, his oddly flat statements seemed to echo her own thoughts, but then they quickly ceased to make any sense at all.

"We've been on this road forever, and it was always leading us here. Whatever we did, whatever we tried to do, it was always going to come to this. This thing between us, these feelings . . . they're cursed, damned. They've made monsters of us both. There's only one way this can end."

She stared at him blankly. "What? What are you – ?"

Suddenly he floored the gas pedal and the car leapt forward.

"Wait! Stop!" But her words froze in her mouth as her attention snapped to the road ahead, at the moment that it vanished beneath them . . .

Then they were falling and falling, and she was screaming, but her cries were cut short by the sounds of shattering glass and grinding metal then the long, mournful wail of the horn . . . . .

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1202605/chapters/2454853)

 

  
**A/N: I'd like to again express my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented[](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/profile)[semarinan](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/) for another stunning gif. This episode is also available in Russian translation. See episode for details.**


	4. Episode 2: Golem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman’s death unearths a secret that menaces two families. Dean struggles with his grief and anxiety while he and Sam try to solve the mystery and defeat a creature made of mud walking. But is fighting the monster enough in a case where innocence is the first victim?

****_Slough , Colorado_  
  
It had been raining earlier, but now the night was clear. The air was still and a heavy mist clung to the ground in the dark corners of the cemetery, while the grave itself was bathed in cold moonlight. It illuminated the dead leaves that lay sodden in the grass, and the newly dug earth was moist and glistening. It made it easy to work, shape, mold, and soon the rough clods began to take on form: first an oval the size of a human head, then an oblong barrel representing the torso; arms grew out from the trunk, legs, feet. Eventually a fully fashioned human figure lay stretched out over the grave, like the first lump of primordial clay, waiting to receive the spark of life.

The work done, the creator retreated into the shadows and was gone. Time passed. Clouds gathered once more and hid the face of the moon as the earthen chest began to rise and fall, and the creature took its first breath in darkness. 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1301275) 

 

_**A/N: I'd like to**_ _ **express my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented**_ [**__** ](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/profile) [**_semarinan_ ** ](http://semarinan.livejournal.com/) **_for creating the stunning gif. This episode is also available in Russian translation, see episode for details._**


	5. Episode 3: Prank'd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean Winchester is adjusting to his mother's death and his father's disappearance. Sam Campbell is adjusting to Dean Winchester. Sam continues to train the former music student, and while the boys investigate an invisible monster plaguing a reality TV show, Dean hones the hunting skills that will help him survive . . . always assuming Sam doesn't kill him first . . .

 

**_Upper Creek_ _,_ _Texas_ ** _**.** _

As he descended the stairs his torchlight fell on an assortment of jars arranged on the dust laden, cob-webbed shelves that lined the room. His expression reflected a sense of morbid fascination with their brackish contents and the nameless shapes festering within.

"We should leave," urged his athletic, blonde companion. "Trust me. No good can come of this," she insisted. "I've faced this thing before. Once it sees you, it never lets go."

As he turned, the light from her torch picked out the sweep of his dark hair and accentuated the determined cut of his jaw, the glitter of his darkly intense eyes. His voice was deep and gruff as he told her "I'm not leaving. We have to find my brother."

He moved cautiously into the depths of the dank cellar and began to revolve slowly while training the torch beam around the room. As he completed his circuit the beam rested once more on the face of his companion. He noted her slack jaw and wide-eyed shock at the same instant that he felt something cold brush against the back of his neck. Hesitantly he turned and raised fearful eyes upward, toward the body hanging from the rafter above him, its head twisted at an unnatural and grotesque angle, purple swollen tongue lolling in a face frozen into a gruesome death-masque. Then, opening his mouth to yell, he emitted a long, high-pitched girly wail.

There was a moment of stunned silence before he and his co-star caught each other's eyes and both erupted into a fit of helpless giggling.

"Cut!" yelled the director.

"Sasha! What was that?" Sarah demanded, recovering slightly as she wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. Frank was laughing so much he was starting to choke for real, and a crewman had to help him extricate himself from the halter that secured him to the rafter.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Sasha gasped. He chewed at the insides of his cheeks, trying to regain composure, but it was no use. He was gone.

The sight of Fran Spires heading his way sobered him a little. He wouldn't say he was afraid of the writer/director of _Grudge Holder II_ , but she was influential in her own sphere. It was rumored she could get anyone in Hollywood into her flicks and have them do anything she wanted. And Sasha didn't want to open a script and find _himself_ hanging from a rafter in the next scene.

"That's great, Sasha. It's all good," she assured him. "Love your work." She paused. "We'll go again. And this time, do you think you can make the scream a little more . . . um . . . macho? I mean, I know it's your brother but . . ."

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. I think maybe I'm a bit . . ." he grimaced ". . . off balance . . . you know, after this morning?" She couldn't blame him for that. She'd approved it. Of course, that didn't necessarily mean she approved _of_ it. "I'll find it," he promised.

Fran nodded. "I know you will, angel."

"Going again, everybody!" yelled a set worker. "Ten-minute reload for camera and sound!"

Sarah had wandered off to get a drink so Sasha decided to take a little walk to settle himself. Pulling out his cell phone he started to compose a message. "Ciao, sashamores!" he tweeted. "Still not recovered from my brush with the prank'd team. Those guys got me good. Plotting my revenge on the tall guy! Rotflmao!"

Sasha's attention was suddenly arrested by a horrendous rending and crashing noise coming from behind the cabin. As he moved toward the back of the set he witnessed trees and scenery being hurled hither and thither, seemingly by some invisible source. It was an impressive sight, and he wondered how it was being achieved without the benefit of C.G.I. He also wondered why he hadn't been informed an FX scene was being filmed today. Perhaps the new guy had slipped up. He shrugged and turned away from the commotion, but hadn't moved more than a few feet when he started to notice a whole bunch of NC17 shiz-nickel: swathes of red splashed across the set or glistening in wet pools, severed limbs with ragged, bloody ends. The techies on this movie really knew their stuff; he'd never seen such realistic work. As he stepped back to avoid compromising the scene he felt something warm and wet drip onto his head and trickle over his ear. He wiped it off and stared at the red stain on his fingers.

_Warm?_

It was then that he noticed the growing stench: rich, pervasive and visceral. He looked up. Hanging from a lighting rig above him was what remained of a man Sasha vaguely recognized as a member of the _Prank'd_ team: a bloody head hanging broken and twisted over a limbless torso that swayed gently backwards and forwards trailing streamers of intestine.

Sasha vented a hoarse and guttural scream of horror. Absurdly, it occurred to him that Fran would have been pleased with it. Unable to move, he was rocking slightly with a sense of disconnection and unreality. He was half conscious of people running up behind and beside him, and presently he recognized the two nearest him as the new P.A. and his tall friend. The young man traded glances with his friend.

"Son of a bitch!" he snarled.

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1393135)

 

_**A/N: I'd like to**_ ** _express my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented_**   **[yelynx](http://yelynx.livejournal.com/)**   ** _for creating the beautiful banner image. "Prank'd" is also available in Russian translation, see episode for details._**


	6. Episode 4: Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything changes. Everything stays the same. Tensions mount between Sam Campbell and Dean Winchester until an explosive quarrel drives the friends apart. Sam finds himself drawn to a pretty stranger while Dean confronts a sinister scarecrow. You think you know this story. Think again.

 

 

**_In the heartland_ **

It was the slowest day of the year: not a customer all afternoon until four o'clock when a tall, swarthy, solidly built man walked into the empty bar and rolled up to the counter. Unloading a duffel bag from his shoulders and resting it on the stool beside him he locked the bar-keeper with dark, intense eyes and a broad smile.

"Give me a shot of Jack, friend," he said. "And take one yourself. I'm celebrating."

"Thank you, sir, and congratulations," the barman replied as he poured the drinks. "May I ask what the occasion is?"

The man picked up his shot and knocked it back whole, setting the empty glass back on the bar with a satisfied sigh. "Do you have children?" he asked.

"Two sons and a daughter," the barman acknowledged.

"Good. Then you'll know how it is – how you bring them into the world, you raise them, try to protect them and guide them . . . then a day comes when you can see the progress they've made, and you see them taking their first steps toward their destiny, and if you know you've had a hand in that, you'll know what a proud moment it is for a father."

The barman nodded his understanding. "Sure is," he agreed.

The dark man pushed his glass across the bar. "Hit me again," he said, and the barman refilled the glass. "Do you believe in destiny?" he asked.

"Can't say I've thought about it, sir."

"Oh, I'm a great believer. I believe life is like a story – like the great stories that are told over and over again, and everyone tells them a different way, but some parts are fixed. The hero always meets the temptress; partnerships are always tested; the big choices are made. That's destiny. The story's always the same. It's just the how and the why that changes." He leaned forward and grinned, and suddenly his eyes glowed yellow. "The Devil's in the detail."

The barman gasped and stumbled backwards but the man's hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar, dragging him across the bar and pressing their faces close together.

"Not so fast, friend. I have to make a call to my daughter."

"There – there's a p – payphone next to the – "

The thing with the yellow eyes raised its other hand and the barman saw the glint of the knife there before it sliced cold across his throat.

"It's not that kind of call." The demon lifted the chalice from his duffel bag and held it under the barman's head as he bled out.

Azazel grinned. "I can feel you in there, John, scratching, fighting. Gotta say I'm impressed. Most people would have given up by now, but not you. You never stop. You never give in. You just gotta keep fighting the good fight. That's what I like about you, John." The demon stirred a finger in the hot, crimson fluid. "It's in your blood.”

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1508672/chapters/3187058)

 

 _ **A/N: I'd like to**_ _ **express my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented**_   **[yelynx](http://yelynx.livejournal.com/)**   ** _for creating the beautiful banner image. "Together" is also available in Russian translation, see episode for details._**


	7. Episode 5: Something Wicked?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little girl has an imaginary friend who knows too much. When Sam Campbell and Dean Winchester investigate, Dean is haunted by memories of the little brother he never had.

 

 ** _Lichtburg_ ** **_,_ ** **_Wisconsin_ ** **_._ **

He couldn't even say what it was about the boy that fascinated him so much. He wasn't a particularly exceptional or attractive child. He was much like any of the other neighbourhood kids, small for his age perhaps, with dirty blond hair and pudgy cheeks and eyes that were somehow too big for his face, and there was something ungainly about the way he walked as he followed after the girl. He was always with that girl. That meant there were fewer opportunities to get him by himself, of course, but it stirred a kind of resentment for other reasons. There was something about the way the boy looked at her, like the sun shone for her, that was both compelling and discomfiting . . . because it was something that was beyond _his_ experience . . . Maybe that had something to do with it.

Of course they were all memorable, in their way, but Donald Helfer especially so, because he was the first. First times are always special.

.

Suzy had a big empty cookie tin she'd saved from Christmas. She bought a post card and wrote a message to the future, and for good measure she put a stamp on it. And she added the whole of the rest of her pocket money for that week: twenty three cents. There was a picture of her favourite pop group, too. Donald was a little jealous of those brothers because Suzy went on and on about them, but he didn't really mind because he knew they lived hundreds of miles away, in Utah, and he lived right next door to Suzy.

She was too old for him, he knew that – because he was only nine and a half, and she was nearly eleven – but Donald thought she was the prettiest girl he'd even seen. She had hair the colour of caramel fudge, and it flowed down the sides of her face in waves and ringlets and smelled of apples; and her eyes were the brightest, clearest blue – the colour of his favourite marble. And she was his best friend in the whole wide world. She didn't tease him because he was short and awkward and a bit bandy. She didn't mind that he had freckles. And he didn't mind too much that she called him Donny.

Donny put his marbles in the tin along with one of his old comics, and they both cut off a piece of their hair and put that in as well. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon taping songs from the radio onto a C60 with the cassette recorder Suzy'd been given for her birthday. Afterward Suzy went to fetch that day's newspaper: Thursday April 29th 1976.

While she was out of the room Donny rewound the tape a little way. He leaned real close to the microphone and whispered "Suzy Wayte, I'll love you forever and ever," then he hastily took out the cassette, slipped it into its case and dropped it into the tin. He was startled and a little alarmed when Suzy returned and took it out again, but she was just wrapping everything in the newspaper, and then she carefully covered the paper in Saran Wrap before placing it in the tin.

Donny dug the hole – under the tree in his back yard. It was hard work and it made him sweat, and the shovel gave him blisters but he didn't tell Suzy that. After they'd put the tin in the bottom they pushed the cool, damp earth back into the hole, patted it down with their hands and covered it over with grass clippings. They promised each other that this would always be their special secret, and they would come back to this spot on the same day in thirty years and retrieve their time capsule together. They sealed it with a pinkie swear.

.

Donald Helfer was nine and a half years old when he was murdered on Friday April 30th 1976.

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1677272/chapters/3562451)


	8. Episode 6: Bad Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A clue about the Colt leads Sam Campbell and Dean Winchester to Red Lodge where Dean is surprised and delighted to run into his old college buddy, Jim Masters. Sam isn’t so thrilled, and is determined to prove the handsome charmer isn’t all he appears. Meanwhile, a confrontation with vampires stirs painful memories of his fatal last case with the Campbells.

_**Sunrise, Wyoming. May 1** _ _**st** _ _**1856.** _

There was no sound at first but for the wind in the trees and the song of birds. At first. Then came the distant rumble of hooves, drawing nearer, growing louder, until the horse thundered along the dirt track and drew up sharply in the clearing outside the old timber shack. The rider, a fair haired man with a young face and old eyes, swung free of the saddle and dropped to the ground, spurs rattling as his boots hit the dirt, the tails of his long coat swaying around his shins. He didn't bother to tether the horse to the hitching rail, just let it wander freely up the track; he knew it wouldn't roam far. Pausing to light a cheroot he inhaled deeply, lips twisting into a sardonic smirk as he surveyed his environment

"Home sweet home?" he challenged, betraying traces of a deep southern drawl, as he let himself into the cabin.

The weathered old hunter barely glanced up from the volume where he was scribbling in a rapid sloping hand. "For now," he confirmed, gruffly.

"You're a long way from Connecticut," the young man observed. "I heard you were building a railroad. Not enough profit in arms dealing, then?" There was no response except the scratching of the pen so he continued in a more serious tone. "Your devil's trap won't stop it, Colt. There's only one thing that will. Do you have it or not?"

The hunter finally raised his head. Tossing back his jacket he revealed the gun holstered at his hip. "You have to catch him first," he pointed out.

"Oh, I'll find him," the visitor drawled, low and silky. "But will it get the job done?"

A humorless smile touched the corners of Colt's lips as he drew the gun out of the holster and handed it to the fair haired man. "This gun will kill anything that walks on God's green earth," he assured him.

"The Beast, too?"

The confidence withered from Colt's expression, but he nodded nevertheless. "It'll kill the Demon and his spawn if it comes to that," he said. "Better it doesn't."

The visitor examined the weapon. It was a thing of beauty, a precision instrument in every detail. The inky black metal was ornately decorated, there was a pentacle branded into the polished walnut grip, and the barrel bore the legend "non timebo mala". There were 5 bullets loaded in the cylinder.

"The rest are in there." Colt indicated a box on the desk. "Don't waste 'em. The gun's useless once they're gone." He watched the other man place the gun in its box and close the lid, but as he moved to pick it up Colt held it with a restraining hand. "I'm trusting you with a fearful weapon," he said. "It isn't to be used indiscriminately."

The other man smirked. "Growing morals in your old age, Colt?" he asked.

"I'm thinking of the children," Colt persisted. "They're not the monsters. They're just innocent victims."

The visitor raised his gaze from the box. His knowing eyes held Colt's, and his lips peeled back in a rueful grin that revealed the sharp points of his second set of teeth. "So were we all," he commented, "once upon a time."

Colt absorbed the point then nodded grimly. "Once upon a time," he agreed.

 

[Please click here to continue reading this story](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1936905/chapters/4183473)


	9. Episode 7: Wayward Son

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam’s visions reveal another of the psychic children. Is he connected to a series of mysterious immolations? Is the yellow eyed demon involved? Sam's search for answers leads him home in more ways than one. Along the way, he and Dean discover they have a mutual friend in South Dakota, and Sam learns more than he wants to know about his relationship with Dean.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

**_Cairo_ ** **_, Egypt_ ** **_– 1923_ **

The sun was a small pale disc in the western sky but it yet illuminated the ancient city, turning the great dome of the heavens a burnished bronze feathered with scarlet, and the rippling waters of the Nile to molten gold. The dusty whitewashed walls of the city below bled pink with its dying light.

From his vantage point, perched near the edge of the rooftop of the Museum of Antiquities, he had a fine view of the city skyline with its tangle of palm trees and contrasting architecture. Cairo spread out before him like a scroll that told the story of millennia: of the rise and fall of civilizations and empires. Coptic crosses mingled with crenellated battlements, synagogues with white domes and minarets, and, to the north-east, a red granite obelisk rose as visible reminder that these lands were once the domain of Ra.

Despite the lateness of the hour, shimmering waves of heat rose from the streets and scorched his nostrils as he breathed the pervasive scent of camel dung, the odor of perfumes and spices from the souks, and the myriad reeks of humanity. Many among the bustling masses in the street were wilting under the evening heat but he thrived on it. Raising his gaze he stared unblinking into the setting sun and felt its rays filling his limbs with power and vitality he had not felt in ages.

From the streets below he could hear the familiar wail of song. The cacophony of musical instruments varied over time; the tone and timbre of the music changed; different themes wove back and forth, fading away to return again then fade once more; but the song itself remained, old as life.

It was time to descend. Making his way down to the lowest floor, he walked past the columns and the plaster Egyptian figures that stood as guards outside the doors of the old library. He found the curator among the stacks. The man was shouting at a lowly clerk for some trivial error, abusing and berating him, even going so far as to slap the boy about the head and shoulders, but he desisted when he saw the visitor approach and dismissed the clerk with a wave of his hand.

“Ah, you have returned! Good! Good!” the man greeted him.

“You have had time to study the item?”

“Yes! Indeed! A very curious artifact indeed. Please!” The curator directed him toward a large desk at the head of the room where he took out a set of keys and proceeded to unlock a heavy wooden box in which he’d stored the scroll. “It was found near the Temple of Re-Atum, you say?” he asked as he unfurled the document, lifted a monocle to his eye and perused the article anew. “It will take time and special study to date accurately, but it may be the oldest example of its kind that I have ever seen. It is likely Egyptian in origin but that is by no means certain. Although it employs Egyptian hieroglyphs and pictographs there is also extensive use of an early Phoenician script. And it appears to tell an unusual variant of the Grecian story of Europa – the Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus in the guise of a bull?” The curator looked up for confirmation that his visitor was familiar with the tale, and was granted a tight, enigmatic smile. “In this version Zeus appears as a trader and tries to bargain with her brother for her hand in marriage . . . or he may be her lover. The vocabulary is difficult and ambiguous, you understand . . . but, then, the morality of those times . . . Egyptian royalty, for example, often married their own siblings . . .”

The man did nothing to disguise his embarrassment and distaste. Such were the minions of this world’s bickering gods; enslaved to his own brief span of time and the narrow confines of his particular culture, the curator was too swift to presume his visitor shared – or should share – its limited dogma and arbitrary codes of conduct.

“When the brother declines his offers, Zeus slays him and takes the girl anyway, carrying her back to Crete where she becomes his bride. Full of grief, Europa prays to the god Apollo and bargains with him for her brother’s life, offering her own in exchange. The god appears to her in the form of a great bird and gives her a tail feather, telling her she must weave the tail into a shroud. Each night she labors in secret, working by the light of the feather itself, which is so bright that it glows even in darkness. After 280 nights her task is complete and she wraps herself in the shroud and is consumed by its fire, but the shroud is transformed into a likeness of her brother . . . or he is reborn from the ashes . . . but when he finds that his sister is dead he vows that he will not rest until he has avenged her.”

“And was the brother now immortal that he presumed to avenge himself against a god?”

The curator smiled indulgently. “Well, it is just a story,” he pointed out.

The visitor had remained tight lipped while he listened to the subjective and faulty interpretation of the scroll, but now he reached out and placed a hand on the curator’s chest. “You are an ignorant man,” he said, “and you know nothing.”

The man’s eyes widened in alarm and he tottered backward, clutching at his chest as smoldering flesh spread rapidly from the wound. Within moments the whole body was ablaze. The monocle cracked from the heat and dropped out of its socket, clattering onto the desk as the visitor folded up the scroll. The clerk, alerted by the screams, rushed into the room in time to witness his employer crumbling into ashes, and stare wide-eyed at the great bird as it unfurled its wings. Gathering up the scroll in its talons it swept out of the museum, rising high in the air and flying swiftly north-east toward what remained of his home, Iunu, and the Temple of Ra.

 

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